Strategic Planning in Research Organizations
David Mineo
Director, RSM McGladrey, Inc
Casey Chapman
Manager, RSM McGladrey, Inc
Discussion Topics
2
y What is Strategic Planning?
y Why Strategic Planning?
y Issues & Challenges in the Research Enterprise
y Process of Strategic Planning
y Process Steps
y Best Practices of Implementation
What is Strategic Planning?
3
What is Strategic Planning?
4
y The process organizations go through in order to
determine what they want to achieve, how they will
achieve it, and how they will measure their success
y Strategic plans are tools for change, not paper and
ink
Why Strategic Planning?
5
Why Strategic Planning?
6
y Takes you outside the day-to-day activities of your
organization and provides you with the big picture
y Helps to align the resources of the organization to
the areas of most beneficial impact
y Creates a common understanding of the goals of the
organization
y Gives you clarity about what you want to achieve and
how to go about achieving it in order to determine a
plan of action for day-to-day operations
Issues & Challenges in the
Research Enterprise
7
Issues & Challenges
8
y Team Science
y Transparency of funding
y Compliance with regulations
y Justification of programs
y Changes in healthcare
y Intolerance of legal risk
Top Reasons Strategic Plans
Fail To Be Operational
9
y Not enough communication
y Leadership and management
y
y
y
y
y
about the plan
Unclear expectations up
front on the entire process
Complete misread of
organization culture and
readiness for change
Funding or regulatory
changes that were
impossible to foresee
Nickel and dime the process
and then later expect stellar
results
y
y
y
y
y
y
team loses courage
Too narrow a scope
Driven by one person’s
opinions
Failure of the team to really
think
Inability to be honest
Lack of talent to execute
Failure to organize around the
plan
Failure to implement
Process of Strategic Planning
10
Developing an Operational Strategy
11
1. Analyze
• Invest time assessing how your business is performing
• Understand external conditions
• “Measure twice, cut once”
2. Visualize
• Determine where you want to go and begin planning
how you are going to get there
• Document your plan
3. Mobilize
• Personal commitment to execution is essential to
operationalizing your plan
4.Organize
• Strategy drives structure; be willing to make
organizational changes to gain traction
5. Realize
• Monitor, measure, continuously improve the planning
process
Process Steps
12
Analyze
Situational Analysis
13
y Who are we?
y What capacity do we have/ What can we do?
y What difference do we want to make?
y Which critical issues must we respond to?
y Where are the best opportunities for funding?
y What should our priorities be?/ Where should we
allocate our resources?
Funding
Agencies
Solving Societal Issues
Industry
Competitive Advantage
Identified Technological Gaps
University
Research Organization
Faculty
Centers &
Institutes
Technology
Transfer
Office of
Sponsored
Programs
Academic
Departments
Other
Research
New/Improved Technologies, Processes, Systems
Analyze
Situational Analysis
15
y Internal
Strengths: attributes of the
organization that are helpful
to achieving the objective
{ Weaknesses: attributes of the
organization that are
harmful to achieving the
objective
y External
{ Opportunities: external
conditions that are helpful to
achieving the objective
{ Threats: external conditions
which could do damage to
the business's performance
{
Visualize
Our Future
16
Mission
Values
• Why we are in existence – our purpose
• Who we are – our core cultural beliefs
Vision
• Where do we want to go and how to we want to be
perceived
Goals
• For each area for which a vision has been developed,
identify key success milestones – keep them SMART
Mobilize
Power in Numbers
17
y One person can create a ripple, not lasting change
y Preparing the organization for implementation is
often overlooked
y Strategic movement requires a collaborative effort
throughout the entire organization - each person
plays an important role
Awareness
Buy-in
Ownership
Organize
Align Your Resources
18
y Structural form to meet the needs of today and goals
y
y
y
y
for tomorrow
Information and control systems
Research space and equipment
Culture – PI, department, school, university
Interorganization interdependencies
Organize
Considerations
19
y Reporting relationships
y Short-term needs
y Span of control
y Long-term needs
y Accountability
y Workflow
y Cost
y Capacity
y Decision control
y Skills
Realize
Implement and Monitor
Strategic Objectives
y
{
Desired outcomes
Target
y
{
The measurable outcome of the
objective (goal)
Measurement
y
{
How the organization will
measure progress towards
meeting the objective
Strategy
y
{
An actionable initiative to
support the strategic objective –
may be in the form of a project
20
y Strategic Objective
{ Grow the research enterprise
to compete better regionally
y Target
{ FY11 research revenue
growth of 10%
y Measurement
{ # of grant applications
{ Revenue
y Strategy
{ Improve the research
application process
{ Reallocate/bring in
additional researchers in
identified growth areas
Realize
Success
21
Best Practices of
Implementation
22
Best Practices
23
David Mineo
Director, RSM McGladrey, Inc
919.645.6816
david.mineo@mcgladrey.com
Casey Chapman
Manager, RSM McGladrey, Inc
816.751.1871
casey.chapman@mcgladrey.com
Strategic Planning in Research Organizations